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Comment by furyofantares | Hacker News Reader

This is wildly unrealistic.

Many people have not been bent over by insurance, but that's the less confusing part of this post.

Almost everyone who has been bent over by insurance will still find someone who assassinated another dude guilty.

I generally agree but think it’ll depend on how sympathetic his case is and what defense he tries. I believe New York juries have to reach a unanimous decision and if he had one of those insurance horror stories it wouldn’t be unheard of for at least one juror to feel sympathetic to, say, a provocation defense and only find him guilty of lesser charges.

Not guilty must also be unanimous. If the jurors can’t agree it’ll be retried. Usually lone holdouts capitulate.

Yes, as I said the mostly likely outcome is guilty but it wouldn’t shock me if, say, he wasn’t convicted on every charge. Juries introduce a human element and the response to this murder illustrates how many people really hate insurance companies. Something over 10% of Americans say they know someone who died due to denied care, which is a big enough number that I wouldn’t rule anything out.

There are other stats in play, too. For example, 30% of Americans know a murder victim. 50% have dealt with gun violence. The jury system narrows down to people who can focus on the law and follow the judge’s instructions. The pool of potential jurors is huge. It’s been rare that a trial has changed counties in any state because too many people in a county have strong feelings about the victim or perpetrator. I could see lesser murder charged being brought to keep motivation out of the trial, though. And yes, rule nothing out (in any trial.)

Agreed yet he'll serve some time like Gypsy Rose. A seemingly good hearted victimized murderer who story seems to work out well for her in the end in. She orchestrated killing her mom vs. just running away. If she's smart enough to get her mom killed indirectly using a lonely dude she's smart enough to run away. Murderer who is free with fame. Luigi is now the same yet is this murderer more liked then Gypsy Rose?

Anyone who has been bent over by insurance will not be selected for the jury.

I'm not sure that is even necessary. I know enough people impacted by such things I'm not sure I wouldn't nullify even though I haven't been impacted myself. I don't think they can find 12 people who don't know someone with a bad story.

Isn't that a reverse conflict of interest? That way you are deliberately selecting people that are more/less sympathetic than a baseline of the US population.

It's not as if "he was mistreated by an insurer" is a defence, is it? That should be entirely irrelevant to the jury's finding, although sentencing might take it into account. The jury just needs to decide if he did it, so not having been mistreated by an insurer shouldn't preclude someone from making that decision.

'Shouldn't' is true. But the prosecution does not need to explain why they reject a potential juror by 'preemptive challenge'. Why would they take the chance?

Similarly, a defendant's race is not relevant to their guilt, but you're not going to pick a self-declared racist if you don't have to.

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